Where has the time gone?!

I was told the other day that I hadn't updated the blog in "a while."

"I know," I said guiltily. "I have to get on that."

"It's been since January, you know," my friend added.

Aghast at the accusation I had to check.

Holy cow, my friend was right! Although I do feel vindicated in the fact that I have, indeed, posted a picture of my kitchen with the new cabinets - just not a full pictorial, which I will remind everyone is not to be done, by strict order of Mike, until the kitchen is finished. We are still a floor and back splash installation away from that!

Unfortunately if anyone is expecting a bunch of pictures of dramatic changes that have occurred in the last eight months they will be disappointed. That's not to say that work hasn't been slowly plugging along, but it's mostly been tedious stuff that isn't too interesting to look at.

So what have we been doing?

Mike installed some new windows in the room that will be Maia's bedroom - once the washer, dryer and hot water tank are removed and relocated to the main level.

We have primed and painted ceilings and window trim.

Mike has removed more panelling and cellulose insulation (and we're still not done!)

But the most exciting thing is he has levelled the floor in the living room. This was a daunting task that is now complete and paves the way for the installation of the new sub floor and flooring! And heck, ya, the girls and I are excited. We have been living on the old plank sub floor since we moved in.

 The problem was, at some point in the house's history it was jacked up, a block foundation installed and the cottage dropped back down. Unfortunately, there is a concrete structure in an area under the cottage, possibly an old cold storage room. When the house was lowered back down the walls of this structure caused the living room floor to hump up (they were slightly higher than the new foundation wall). In order to take this hump out of the floor Mike had to smash out the top of this structure's walls to let the boards settle back down to level.

This is "the pit of doom" as we affectionately call it. We don't know what it's actual use was. Initially Mike thought it was a cistern, for the storage of water, but when he cleaned it out there was no concrete bottom. We now think it may have been a cold storage room. A neighbour has told us that years ago, before refrigerators, blocks of ice were delivered to each of the homes on the street for cold food storage. This makes sense because the sand base of the pit would have allowed water to just drain away as the ice melted. Of late the pit has been a catch all for the dog's toys, socks, a throw pillow, a beach ball and what ever else happens to make it's way in there (often with Finn's help).

Mike has also installed some additional support structures in the crawl space. I don't have pictures of them. I'm not keen on shimmying around under the house. Mike has my undying admiration for the number of hours he has spent on his back trying to shore up the our home.

Now that this work is largely done Mike has been able to strap the living room and begin the installation of a fresh plywood sub floor.

 

It can't be long until we have flooring in the porch, living room and kitchen! And finally something somewhat more photo-worthy to post!

 



Baby, it's cold outside ...

The temperatures are finally starting to turn cold. Whether it stays this way is any one's guess, but if it does we are becoming more and more prepared.

As Mike works his way through the house he is opening up walls, cleaning up the framing and insulating. The latest room to get this treatment is the living room. Last weekend Mike pulled out the very unattractive panelling that had been gracing the walls. This, once again, was what we found underneath:

Ah, cellulose insulation ... this could go a long way to explaining why we had some hefty heating bills last winter. Not only is it extremely inefficient in filling the wall cavities, it is nasty stuff to remove. We split the duties, each taking one side of the room and thankfully got the mess cleared out fairly quickly.

Mike then worked his magic and the walls now look like this:

He didn't have any drywall on hand to finish the job, so Mike unexpectedly (at least to me - I guess I missed the planning meeting!) turned his attention to the demolition of our main floor powder room.

Before I could grab the camera he already had the sink torn out!

The work went pretty quickly and I actually have to say I don't miss it. The room was small and cold and had a funky smell. The space that it occupied will become a closet for the water heater, which is currently residing upstairs in Maia's future bedroom. Mike then plans on building a bump-out on the side to house a new powder room, or possibly a slight larger bathroom featuring a doggy shower to hose Finn down when he comes in covered in mud or sand.

I will miss my awesome little window once the addition comes and that old wall is removed. Mike has offered to replace it with a new octagonal window, but it won't be the same ... this one is like a cute little wooden porthole, a paint-peeling, mildewy little porthole ... maybe it won't be so missed.

Other things of note going on the the Crooked Cottage? The living room and kitchen ceilings are completely installed and primed. They still need to be painted and have finish trimwork done, but this is a million times better than the old ceiling tiles we found when we moved in ...

What's next? I think that depends on what mood Mike is in ; )
I've heard a rumour that hooking up the new dishwasher is on the books ... (and the parts required are in the mail!)

Takin' it inside ...

Once again I have taken much too long to update, so here goes ...
Mike has pretty much wrapped up the outside work for the season. Most of the siding is back on except for the bottom row. He is hoping if the weather cooperates he can get a little more repair work done on the sill plates before the snow takes over. If not, it can wait until the spring.

In the mean time, the work has shifted inside. What's been going on?

The porch area has been double insulated and drywalled. Mike has not mudded or taped it yet though. He has, however, removed the old closet and crappy, bain-of-my-existence sliding doors that were hung on it. It will be replaced with antique hooks and a bench made from reclaimed cottage wood.

The kitchen counter has been installed and our new appliances have arrived. The water line for the ice maker/water dispenser in the fridge (Mike's new toy) is not yet plumbed in, nor is the dishwasher, much to the detriment of my dry chapped dishpan hands!

In the current laundry room, which will be Maia's future bedroom, we have demoed the two walls of closets and reclaimed the old tongue and groove planks,that were originally doors that someone had cut up and coverted to shelves.

Mike has also been working on the fireplace surround. Our beautiful mantle is in place - an old maple beam complete with original wooden pegs; the tv surround is installed and finished out with the old tongue and groove boards that we salvaged from the closets upstairs and the cement board is installed below the mantle in preparation for the application of stone. Mike wants this to be a big reveal as it's a pet project of his, so sorry, he has banned me from posting progress pictures - you will have to stay tuned!

We have chosen our flooring and 58 cartons are due to arrive with our name on them tomorrow at Tim-br Mart. I have absolutely no idea where we are going to put them!

We agonized over the selection of this flooring.You  may recall in the family room Mike installed reclaimed hemlock. It was a very tedious, time consuming process with each plank needing to be individually cut. The result was beautiful. Unfortunately with a large, energetic dog in the house it only looked beautiful for about a week. It is now terribly marked up and grooved from Finn's claws. We are so disappointed.

Hemlock falls somewhere between a soft wood and a hard wood, so we considered trying a hard wood for the rest of the main floor. However with the dog and kids and sand we were worried whether hard wood would be durable enough. We were also advised with the fluctuations in temperature and the high moisture levels in our climate that hardwood is not recommended for our area.

We ultimately decided on, gasp, laminate. The good news is this flooring is nothing like your first generation laminate that was all shiny and fake looking, like a picture of wood glued to a masonite plank. We have chosen a new line from Mannington flooring called "Restoration." The planks look old and weathered and have the texture of wood grain. They are also extremely durable and able to withstand the riggers of dog and kids. Even better, and what is important to us, is this flooring is made from 70% recycled materials and installs with an adhesive-free click system. For a project in which we had hoped to use as much reclaimed materials as possible this is a good compromise.

Next update ... hopefully some pictures of installed flooring and maybe the fireplace!

Season's Greetings from the Crooked Cottage!

the domino effect ...

The last time I blogged we were working on the kitchen. Well things were happily moving along then we hit a snag. As I went to order our new fridge we realized that none of our doors were wide enough to get a new, larger refrigerator into the house!

I filled Mike in on our dilemma and he just very matter of factly said "well I'll just go ahead and install the new front door."

While this might sound like a simple solution I should explain that it wasn't just a matter of widening the door opening and installing our new door. The front entrance was actually moving.

This is how our house was configured when we moved in. You can see that the entrance is on the side, not the front. Silly us, we actually wanted the front door on the front of our house.

So given this task Mike decided that he should just go ahead and reframe for the new windows too. In a matter of hours we went from the picture above to this ...

Needless to say there was a mad scramble about 10:00 Saturday night to get some plywood up on the front of our house to close things in ... and to keep the neighbourhood critters out!

Sunday, with the help of our fantastic neighbour Bob, Mike got the front sheathed and wrapped and all of the windows installed. Yesterday the door went in.

The windows and door still need to be trimmed out and the siding put back on. Then the old door will be removed and the wall repaired.

This was a whole lot of action for one weekend ... only in the Crooked Cottage can the house get a partial face lift to accommodate the purchase of a new fridge!

Next spring the work will continue on the upper level. We will be taking the roof off of the front of the house and raising the roof line up to the height of the main structure. New windows to match the ones we just installed will also be going in.

Kitchen preview

I had planned on holding off until the kitchen is done to do a big grand reveal, you know, for the wow factor. However, lots of people have been asking to see pictures and Mike went and promised his parents that I would update the blog (sorry this is almost a week late!)

I will do a more detailed post later where I will include the before & after shots and all of the in between. But for now here is a little sneak peek of what Mike has done so far.

When we moved in the entire main floor, with the exception of the family room, had a drop ceiling covered in fibre board tiles. When we ripped it out (on the day we took possession) we discovered tongue and groove plank ceilings underneath. Unfortunately at some point someone installed new subfloors upstairs. In the process they breached the main floor ceilings with thousands of nails. It was too much to try to repair, so Mike has recreated a tongue and groove ceiling with exposed beams in the kitchen & dining area. There is still more trim to add and then it will be painted out white.

After some major shimming of the studs so that at least the interior walls of our cottage will no longer be crooked Mike reinsulated and hung new drywall. The new cabinets and sink have now been installed as well. We are still quite far from finished, but here's a teaser ... we have gone from this ...

to this ...

Still to come are counters, new appliances, flooring, back splash, hardware and a reworking of the former penninsula. Stay tuned!

Made in the shade ...

While Mike toils under the house I've been working out in the yard.

We have a lot of re-grading to do to bring the house up out of the ground (at some point someone back-filled the yard too deep against the house and the moisture has started rotting the sill plates of the exterior walls). Because of all of this work we had pretty much resigned ourselves to the fact that we wouldn't really have any gardens this year. However, sometimes things take an unplanned turn that makes for a nice surprise.

A few weeks ago Mike asked me to move some hostas that were going to be in the way of some excavation work. The only place that was available was a spot under the trees at the front of our property that had been used as an area for dumping some of the excess soil.

So one afternoon the girls and I headed outside to tackle the task. Maia manned the rake for a short time until she gave up and relegated herself to the position of wheelbarrow and tool manager. Ran was content to pick rocks and provide snacks (a delicious combination of gold fish crackers and granola bars ... mmmmm!)

This is what we started with (my FB friends will have already seen the first two pictures) ...

and by the end of the afternoon we had this ... we were so pleased with the results.

The garden is now filled with several mature hostas, periwinkle, lily of the valley, ferns, astilbe and moss. Everything was reclaimed from somewhere else on our property except for the ferns, which our neighbour gave us and six small moss plants which I bought.

To take things one step further I have been adding some rock over the last week. The bed is now outlined with a beach rock border (the rocks were recovered from under the cottage last summer when we had our crawl space dug out). I have also laid a flag stone path in the clearing that cuts through the trees at the front of the yard.

While a garden was not part of the plan for this year it sure is nice to have at least one patch of pretty out in the yard.

We are just gutted ...

For a couple of weeks I've been telling people that I'm going to update the blog so I guess it's time I actually did! You might want to make yourself comfortable. There's been a lot going on so this entry is long!

I would say we are now in the thick of the main floor demo. With the exception of the family room and the powder room the main floor is pretty much gutted.

The kitchen/dining area reno began with moving with built-in dish cabinets in the dining area. I love the usefulness of these cabinets and didn't want to see them disappear completely. They are now sitting in our future pantry (in the former back hallway) where they will become, no surprise, my pantry cabinets.

When we pulled out the cabinets we discovered an original cottage wall. We will be salvaging the material to maintain the rustic look. The wall will be partially opened up to allow a view out to the lake from the dining area. The lower section of the wall will remain and will be covered with the original boards that we are saving.

Next we started the demo of the main kitchen area. This was a tedious process that required a number of sequential steps.

First, the penninsula of base cabinets had to be removed in order to get to the flooring. It is now sitting in our living room and helping to serve as part of my temporary kitchen. Mike then ripped out the strip hardwood flooring that we absolutely hated. As he started pulling up the subfloor he made an interesting discovery. There were layers of old newspaper under the floor.

The papers dated from 1937. There were articles about the Spanish civil war, local tourism (from the London Free Press), sports, fashion etc. Unfortunately most of the paper had fused to the floor and it was almost impossible to salvage more than just small pieces. In some areas the ink had actually transferred onto the floor boards. In this picture you can see where the floor says Chevrolet from a car dealership's ad.

Taking a break from the work for a little fun ... one of the benefits of living in a house under construction ...

Once the subfloor was removed and the paper scraped we had to rid the walls of this lovely faux brick. It was made from some sort of wood fibre and was adhered to the drywall. Everyone got in on the act ...

Another interesting discovery was made as the walls came down in the dining area (although not nearly as amusing as the old newspapers).

The walls were a mess of random strapping that had been slapped up to support the panelling and drywall. We also discovered that the north wall of the house had been insulated with blown fibre insulation. You may notice in the picture that the fibre had settled in the wall cavities and there are several pockets in the wall that had virtually no insulation (no wonder we had big heating bills this past winter!). And what a heck of a mess to remove! Mike spent hours knocking it out of the wall, shovelling it up and then vacuuming the remains.

One cool thing about opening up the walls is we are able to see where original windows and plumbing and a door once were. It's fun imaging what the cottage used to look like (and kind of sad).

The remainder of the cabinets have now been removed except for the sink area. Mike is having to reroute some cabling and remove several old dead-ended wires. He is squaring up the studs and will hopefully putting up some drywall in the next week or so (and obviously insulating the exterior walls).

Mike has also been working hard at levelling the subfloor. This is a tedious job that involves a lot of work in the crawl space cutting out old supports and reinstalling them in a more appropriate configuration.

Stay tuned for pictures of our beautiful new cabinets. Here's how they look now ...